Former NBA player and Sacramento Kings general manager Vlade Divac revealed why he didn’t select guard Luka Doncic in the first round of the 2018 NBA Draft.
“At that position, I already had De’Aaron Fox, whom I had drafted a year earlier,” Divac told Index. “At the time, I believed Fox was a player who could become a franchise star in the coming years. Time will tell if I was wrong. As things stand now, it seems I was, but I still have faith in Fox having a great career.”
Fox, who is one of the better young guards in the NBA, was taken by Sacramento with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft.
Instead of taking Doncic with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, Divac opted to take big man Marvin Bagley III out of Duke University. Bagley made an All-Rookie team in his first season, but he did not last in Sacramento and was traded in his fourth NBA season to the Detroit Pistons.
Meanwhile, Doncic has gone on to become one of the best players in the NBA. He’s now a five-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection and won the Rookie of the Year award in the 2018-19 season.
Last season, Doncic led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals, but they ended up coming up short in the series, losing to the Boston Celtics.
Even though Doncic found a ton of success last season playing alongside guard Kyrie Irving, Divac does not believe that he would have worked well alongside Fox.
“No,” Divac said when asked if Fox and Doncic could play together like Irving and Doncic have. “Irving is a classic scorer, just like Luka. Fox isn’t; he’s a playmaker who needs the ball, just like Luka. I could’ve taken Luka, but then I’d have had to trade Fox. Interestingly, Phoenix also passed on Luka, and at the time, their coach was Igor Kokoškov, who had coached Luka in Slovenia. Atlanta drafted Luka, but they traded him away. It was Dallas that eventually took him. I love watching Luka; I really enjoy his style of basketball. I had my own reasons for making that decision. Maybe I made a mistake, but time will tell.”
In Divac’s defense, he wasn’t the only executive that passed on Doncic. The Phoenix Suns selected Deandre Ayton with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, and the Atlanta Hawks ended up trading Doncic in a deal that landed them Trae Young.
Both Ayton and Young have been on some good teams – Ayton made the Finals with the Suns and Young made the Eastern Conference Finals with Atlanta – but neither has enjoyed as much individual success as Doncic in the NBA.
Unfortunately for Kings fans, Fox has not been able to lead the team past the first round of the playoffs – although he did help the Kings earn the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference in the 2022-23 season.
It’ll be interesting to see if either Fox or Doncic ever leads his respective franchise to an NBA title.
